as a time-serving priest,
willing to go any length to keep his place, and that the other was in
heart a papist, with this sole proviso, that she should be her own
pope.

And so Miss Thorne went on sighing and regretting, looking back to
the divine right of kings as the ruling axiom of a golden age, and
cherishing, low down in the bottom of her heart of hearts, a dear
unmentioned wish for the restoration of some exiled Stuart. Who
would deny her the luxury of her sighs, or the sweetness of her soft
regrets!

In her person and her dress she was perfect, and well she knew her
own perfection. She was a small, elegantly made old woman, with
a face from which the glow of her youth had not departed without
leaving some streaks of a roseate hue. She was proud of her colour,
proud of her grey hair which she wore in short crisp curls peering
out all around her face from her dainty white lace cap. To think of
all the money that she spent in lace used to break the heart of poor
Mrs. Quiverful with her seven daughters. She was proud of her teeth,
which were still white and numerous, proud of her bright cheery eye,
proud of her short jaunty step; and very proud of the neat, precise,
small feet with which those steps were taken. She was proud also,
ay, very proud, of the rich brocaded silk in which it was her custom
to ruffle through her drawing-room.

We know what was the custom of the lady of Branksome--

Nine-and-twenty knights of fame
Hung their shields in Branksome Hall.

The lady of Ullathorne was not so martial in her habits, but hardly
less costly. She might have boasted that nine-and-twenty silken
skirts might have been produced in her chamber, each fit to stand
alone. The nine-and-twenty shields of the Scottish heroes were less
independent and hardly more potent to withstand any attack that might
be made on them. Miss Thorne when fully dressed might be said to
have been armed cap-a-pie, and she was always fully dressed, as far
as was ever known to mortal man.

For all this rich attire Miss Thorne was not indebted to the
generosity of her brother. She had a very comfortable independence
of her own, which she divided among juvenile relatives, the
milliners, and the poor, giving much the largest share to the latter.
It may be imagined, therefore, that with all her little follies she
was not unpopular. All her follies have, we believe, been told.
Her virtues were too numerous to describe, and not sufficiently